Monthly Archives: January 2010

What do Albert Einstein, Frank Zappa, Pepsi Cola and IBM all have in common? The answer is they all had a good ‘old fashioned’ off-line vehicle for social networking and correspondence – the letterhead.

Way back in the days before email, MySpace, MSN, Facebook and Twitter the ordinary letter was a major means of personal communication.

The bespoke letterhead was a way of giving a letter a more personal or professional appeal.

Letterheady is website devoted to collecting and displaying all kinds of letterheads, not the content, but rather the design of the letterhead itself. There are many surprising and interesting examples covering business, celebrity and others and the site is well worth a browse.

Like this:

I came across this application recently and thought it was worth sharing…

Ommwriter is a full-screen word processor with a minimal interface designed to avoid any screen-based distractions from the act of writing. If desired, calming background music or sounds can be turned on to accompany you while you write. The background image can be altered or left blank.

This is from the Ommwriter website:

Ommwriter is a humble attempt to recapture what technology has snatched away from us today: our capacity to concentrate.

Ommwriter is a simple text processor that firmly believes in making writing a pleasure once again, vindicating the close relationship between writer and paper. The more intimate the relation, the smoother the flow of inspiration.

If you are a scriptwriter, blogger, journalist, copywriter, poet or just someone who enjoys writing, welcome back to concentrating.

I have to admit that I’ve never come across anything like it before and having spent a very short time playing around with it I feel it’s worthy of a more involved project, when I get the time.

I like the fact that I’m no longer distracted by all the usual ‘desktop’ environment. The background sounds can be a little annoying after a while, but it can be turned down low or off, so that’s not a significant problem. A small number of different background images can be loaded or you can opt for a completely blank screen. the simple controls only appear on screen when you stop writing and use the cursor over the image. The whole application is very polished and considering it’s free, you can’t complain. If you like the ‘less is more’ approach, then this could be for you.

Ommwriter only saves in it’s own format or .txt and is available a free download for Mac X based systems.

Like this:

Over the last few days the UK has been in the grip of a big freeze. Many people have been unable to get into work and have opted to work from home. I left the office a couple of days ago and took a few pictures of the almost blizzard like conditions around Rodney Street in Liverpool. I must admit that after the lengthy journey home, followed by the ice-covered pavements, working from home looked like a good idea.